…on security breakdown
Receiving yet another report from the British on a security plan for Guyana, President Granger claimed, “We passed through nearly 20 years of ‘woulda, coulda and shoulda,’ without any attempt to seriously deal with the security problem in this country.”
“Twenty years” would of course put the genesis of our security breakdown firmly in the lap of the PPP back in 1998. And the PPP’s response since that time, the President continued, was just “bluff”.
But if this a fair assessment? Did the security situation suddenly collapse with the return of the PPP? When the House of Israel were terrorizing citizens at political meetings that castigated Burnham and his PNC for creating a dictatorship in the 1970s – in full view of the Police – was that “strengthening our security? I guess we can’t ask Fr Darke!
Or the assassination of Rodney to open the 1980s, was that augmenting our security?
What about the kick-down-the-door bandits that terrorized “PPP communities” during the 1980s? Most of the guns they used for their mayhem were loaned by security forces’ personnel. When those forces were used to intimidate “PPP villages” by marching through them in the heat of the night, how exactly did that improve security? Or is “pacification” of the people to have them huddle in fear in their homes a valid means of “increasing security”?
But we could go back even further for the destruction of our forces of law and order to such an extent that we’ve never been able to put them back together again. And it all started with the British, who worked with the US to remove the PPP from office in the 1960s.
Didn’t the then Minister of Home Affairs, Janet Jagan, resign because the Police and Volunteer Force refused to take action to prevent the onslaught against PPP supporters?
So, c’mon Mr Granger…if you really want to talk about “security breakdown”, you have to start with your PNC that benefited from the British introducing bias in the security forces in the sixties. Burnham then intensified that de-professionalization in the following decades until 1990, when Hoyte had to form the TST or “Black Clothes”. Hadn’t he, David Granger, been made the first Security Advisor to the President that year? What exactly did he recommend? By then wasn’t Laurie Lewis at the head of an internal spy network that was augmenting the Joint Intelligence Unit of the Disciplined Forces?
The sad truth is the PPP inherited Security Forces that had been long corrupted and subverted, and they were forced to “go along to get along”.
Granger’s early shakeups and hand-picked appointments just shows we’re back to the PNC modus operandi.
Corrupt and control the security forces.
…on somersaulting
PM Nagamootoo must be given credit for being very conscientious in performing the portfolio allocated him by President Granger – writing a column in the Sunday Chronic. Every Sunday, you can count on him trotting the latest defense of the PNC Government. In his latest, he accused Opposition Leader Jagdeo of “somersaulting” on the sugar crisis. Jagdeo now says the PPP would not oppose privatization of the industry.
Simultaneously, Nagamootoo admitted that in all the 50 years he boasts he was in the PPP, he “had embraced this ideology with a passion”. But now he has seen the error of his ways.
So, if Jagdeo “somersaulted,” what did he do? A back flip? The only reason one could see for Jagdeo’s change was the matter had become a fait accompli after the PNC’s unilateral closure of the 4 estates. What was Nagamootoo’s reason? The only change for him is he’s now earning $1million monthly – plus practically unlimited flying miles and perks!!
What does it profit a man to gain the world, but lose his soul?
…Ethnic Relations Commission
A new ERC body has been announced – the first since 2011, when an injunction against it was filed by Robert Corbin, leader of the PNC.
That injunction was dismissed in 2014…when Corbin withdrew. What now?
